It's the first match from the men draw in the daily schedule at the central court and Kevin is expected to win here. They have one match last year in Miami and Anderson won it quite easy 6:2 7:5. Here on clay Anderson will not have that big advantage, because it's not a hard court, but he proves that his form is improving match by match. It's a matter of time to make something big on clay after he had excellent results on hard courts in the start of the year with a title in New York, final in Acapulco and two QFs in Indian Wells and Miami. Yesterday he beat Kohlschreiber who is in form and he made it quite easy 6:3 7:6 in a match which was highly expected to be much longer in three sets. Before that he beat Kukushkin in three sets.

Lajovic played much longer than his opponent not only in the previous round, but at all in Madrid. He has five matches played here. Two in the qualifications and three in the main draw. He beat players like Khachanov, Gasquet and Del Potro and this week is more than outstanding for him. But Kevin is a different player who finds his form right here in Madrid. He serves excellent with a lot of aces, he is moving on the court very well and is not worried to be into rallies. Del Potro proved against Lajovic in the first set that he's much better player breaking the Serb two times to win the set 6:3. Then in the 2nd Del Potro started really slowly without any pressure over his opponent to try finishing him and the result was equal before late break for the Serb when it was 4:4. It finally finished 6:4 for Lajovic. The Serb succeeded to break early in the 3rd set, then he was rebroken and in the tiebreak he made a miracle comeback from 0:4 to 8:6 points. Lajovic was not so good, I think the win was much more because of the fact that was 2nd match for the Argentinian after month and a half and it was on clay, which is not the favorite surface for Del Potro. The fact he beat Khachanov and Gasquet speaks good about him and he feels really good in the Spanish capital. But against Kevin..I don't know if we can continue his row of wins against a player who can make him move from one side of the court to the other with bunch of aces. I don't think Lajovic will also have big advantage in the rallies, it will be equal as it was against Del Potro. The match depends more on Lajovic service games. If Anderson feels panic in opponent's serve from the start of the match, Kevin will use that for sure and will finish his opponent, but if Lajovic games are quick without giving much chances to the returner, we can easily see a tie-break.or even more than one.

I looked for so many different options here like Kevin to win the match at about 1.55, over 22.5 or 23.5 games, but it's risky if Lajovic is a little bit inconvenient and makes a start like this one against Del Potro. In that way Kevin won't make the same mistake as the Argentinian and will finish him in straight sets for sure. Yesterday Kevin played 22 games against the German who's in form and that worries me a little bit to take this over. That's the reason I finally chose Anderson -1.5 games with big chance for success even if Anderson won the match in three sets. It can be also correct if Anderson loses the match in three sets and he wins one of the sets with big difference and loses the other two with 1/2 games difference. There such a variety of options here and maybe that's the worst match from tomorrow's men schedule, because I want to pick different pick than just Anderson win. GL!